high fidelity

High Fidelity

Rob, the main character in the movie High Fidelity, is experiencing a mid life crisis in his mid 30’s. He is beginning to question whether or not his current job is right for him and if t is as fulfilling as he wants it to be; he also begins to question his past relationship and evaluate what went wrong with them. This mid life crisis is onset by his stable live in girlfriend leaving him because of many things but it was mainly triggered by feelings of distance between them and the lack of commitment. After she leaves he realizes that she might have been the one after he evaluated his past “Top 5 Breakups.” Although it takes Laura, his girlfriend, leaving for him to really think about commitment and to reevaluate what he is doing with his life it is probably the best thing that happened to him.

The state of Rob’s intimate relationship with Laura before the break up was still in the self-focused stage, at least on Rob’s behalf. He is not very mature for his age and seems to be comfortable with the way things were and wasn’t looking for anything to change. A prime example of this is the fact that Rob hired Barry and Dick is two friends when the store opened and can not fire them because even though they are not the best workers he is afraid of change. Rob is a neurotic, self-absorbed, and obsesses over his dreary romantic history. According to Erikson one has to truly know themselves in order to fully realate and connect to another and since Rob doesn’t seem to know himself at all before the breakup it would make sense for Laura and their relationship to not work out. Rob at this point in his life is reflecting upon who his is and realizing that he wants more, he wants more than just working at the record store, although he does feel passionate about the store that specializes only in vinyl it isn’t making him very much money and he begins to feel as though he wants more out of life. Although Laura walked out on him she does love him and Rob finally realizes after she leaves that he doesn’t want anymore meaningless relationships; he only wants Laura.

After Laura leaves Rob seems to have an awakening and begins to mature in his understanding of what it takes to have a good stable relationship. He begins to mature from not wanting commitment to realizing tha...

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...me many things in regards to how to develop stable intimate relationships with a partner. It taught me the significance of learning from past relationships, not only about how to maintain a relationship but about you. From looking at past relationships one can truly see who they are and who they want to become. Also I gained the knowledge that you don’t have to have a significant amount of similarities between you and your partner for it to work out. It is ok to have differences as long as you embrace those differences and learn from your partner. Happiness in a relationship comes from learning with your partner about who you both are and what you both stand for in life. Also by spending quality time growing with you partner that too makes a stable relationship to thrive off of. There was also an importance of having a deep connectedness with your partner but at the same time maintaining you own personal identity. However the most important thing that I gained from this movie is the value of complete and utter trust in a relationship. If your relationship doesn’t posses this then you really don’t have anything, you have nothing to base everything else in your relationship off of.